


Just Past Half-Five

by BrosleCub12



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Anxiety, Character Death (off-screen), Flashbacks, Friendship, Gen, Grief/Mourning, Guilt, Helping out, Hugs, Hurt/Comfort, John is Alone, John is Not Okay, Mental Anguish, Self-Esteem Issues, Sherlock is doing his best, Some Fluff, Uncertainty, but not for long, lovely Sherlock, physical comfort, post-series 3
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-11-17
Updated: 2015-11-17
Packaged: 2018-05-02 02:46:49
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,752
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5230970
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/BrosleCub12/pseuds/BrosleCub12
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p><i>He’s having a breakdown, he realises vaguely, everything he’s doing right now points towards that. He knows the symptoms well; seen them in others, seen them in himself.</i> In which John struggles to cope and Sherlock is there.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Just Past Half-Five

**Author's Note:**

> I will be honest - this hasn't been beta-read, but it's the first recent Sherlock fic I've written that I feel satisfied with, as some of the previous have just been a case of oiling the wheels. So, constructive criticism would be most welcome.  
> Rated M for some swearing, mental anguish, spousal loss and the loss of the Watson baby. I know; I am putting poor John through the wringer right now.

*

_221b Baker Street. Come back, John. S._

It’s the day after the funeral when John gets that text and he sits on his side of the bed – the bed that he and Mary shared – and he stares at it. The phone buzzes again in his hand and John holds it up blankly, thinks he might give a twitch of a smile at the message.

_When you’re ready, of course. S._

He wants to smile. He likes that, he thinks vaguely. He likes that Sherlock just puts _S_ now. That’s. That’s nice. Informal. Sherlock is trying to be informal.

_Come back, John._

_*_

He arrives at the house – at 221 – just past half-five, without a bag and only a jacket to keep him warm. It’s nearly February. He lets himself in to the front hall, breathes it all in. It’s so ridiculously samey: the scent from Mrs Hudson’s cleaning, furniture polish and bleach; the smell of something cooking from 221A and _that._ That slight sense of light and dust that he gets, every time he steps in here. The same memory that hits him every time, since that first night, _And you invaded Afghanistan_ and the sound of his own, high-pitched giggle.

He can hear movement over his head; nothing frantic, just normal. Sherlock, moving around upstairs, just above his head. Safe and secure, despite all the odds.

John stares at the stairs leading up to 221B for a long time. Then he steps forward, bit by bit and lowers himself onto the first step.

He doesn’t go up.

*

He stays there for about exactly sixteen minutes and fifty-seven seconds (he counts) before he hears the footsteps move, the slight tumble of Sherlock as he comes down and around, stands at the top of the stairs. It occurs to John that Sherlock must have known he was here; he always knows. He’s frowning down at John, open concern on his face. He’s confused.

John wants to smile, talk, say something reassuring. He does – but something prickles at the back of his throat as he looks up at him. Moments like this; they’re something to chuckle with Mary about, he thinks, remembers how she once told him, openly and unabashed – leaning in with a cheeky wrinkle of the nose to confide in him – that she thought Sherlock had a truly gorgeous face, and that it was even lovelier when it showed human emotion; whenever he looked flustered, sure, but particularly when he smiled, when his eyes had crinkled at the corners. ‘He's the romantic lead who causes the heroine to drop her forehead on her desk. _Repeatedly,’_ she had chuckled. And she and Sherlock had smiled at each other a lot.

 _Why did you shoot him, then,_ John thinks, even now and curses himself for thinking that, just one day after they’ve cremated her. Cremated her and cremated the baby, side by side.

‘It’s only me,’ he says finally, by way of explanation.

‘John,’ Sherlock descends the stairs slowly, carefully; something about that worries the doctor. He needs to ask if Sherlock’s okay. He should really ask at some point. Sherlock and Mary were friends, after all.

(Or were they, in the end? John wonders. Had Sherlock truly forgiven her? Or had he just tolerated her, for John’s sake?)

‘Hello,’ he returns, tries to make an effort to sound normal; instead it comes out all thick and _wrong,_ somehow, his voice constricted by some sort of cork in his throat that’s stoppering him up from the inside and he focuses on his knees instead. Sherlock senses it straight away; he seems to take it on, takes on John’s way of doing things, comes to a halt and then slowly, lowers himself two steps above John.

‘Wouldn’t you be more comfortable upstairs?’ he asks eventually, cautiously, as he inspects John’s current seating arrangement.

John looks past him, up the stairs, towards the slight light on the wall above that comes from the door upstairs that Sherlock’s obviously left open. Another familiarity, another kitchen, another bed, a comfy chair by the fire that’s always been his. Another place that has always been open to him, if he wants it.

He shakes his head.

‘No,’ he says. ‘I can’t.’

*

‘I can’t,’ he says and the words hurt to say.

But he can’t. Simple as.

*

It’s obvious it catches his friend off-guard; Sherlock blinks hard as though John’s thrown something at his face, furrows his brow. He’s almost floundering, just for a second, before his face changes; his eyes set, his mouth moves downwards.

‘I see.’ He clears his throat as he stands up abruptly, fixes his gaze on the floor just for a few seconds before turning back to John. ‘Is that. Is that what you’ve come to tell me, then?’ He’s doing a thing; he’s doing a thing with his face where he’s trying to look unbothered and unfazed and as if he were expecting this and because John knows him so well, is failing. ‘You. You’d like to collect the rest of your things? Would you like me to get them for you?’

John _does_ smile then, albeit without humour, a stretch of the mouth that hurts his skin and shakes his head, vigorous, blinking hard. Sherlock thinks he understands; clearly thinks this is it now, done and dusted between them, is trying to remain as calm about it as he can. That’s the odd thing about Sherlock, though; he can be so oddly controlled in a crisis, it’s a funny knack he has, despite it all. He’s been very calm the last week, for instance, while John’s world has been falling apart.

‘I haven’t come to get anything,’ he tells Sherlock, because he hasn’t. His left hand is trembling, he curls it into a fist, a loose fist, tries to ignore it. Sherlock blinks, once, twice. John doesn’t move and stares down at his knees as Sherlock descends another step.

‘You’ve still got some clothes here, John and –’

‘I haven’t come. To get. _Anything,’_ John says again, gritting his teeth. His hand shakes harder; he knows Sherlock’s noticed.

‘Oh.’

‘Yeah,’ John looks away, stares at the front door. Rests his chin on his knees.

‘Then…’ Sherlock wavers; he’s out of his league here, John can practically hear his brain whirring, looking for the right thing, the right answer, searching for the right cue.

‘Can I call you a taxi?’ he enquires then and it sounds so tentative that a small part of John wants to laugh – but he won’t do that. He can’t. He won’t be a bastard about this. Part of him is aware he’s going around in circles here, creating riddles, he’s confusing Sherlock like there’s no tomorrow: a very rare occurrence.

He shakes his head, the only answer he can really give right now. He doesn’t want to go. He doesn’t want to go back out there where there is no Mary and no baby and no-one else. Nowhere else to go.

‘No. No,’ he assures. ‘I’ll just.’ He huddles in even further to make his point. ‘Fine here, thanks.’ He offers Sherlock a nod, _That okay with you?_ and Sherlock blinks again, one, two, three times before he raises his head, his chin: something like sudden understanding shifting across his face, before he nods, slowly, back.

‘Okay.’

*

It really is remarkable how adaptable Sherlock can be, to any situation once he’s got a grip on it – any case they’ve ever had, John and Mary’s wedding, Mary’s funeral – and even this he adapts to and quickly.

He sits on the stairs for a few moments with John and John can’t deny it, he’s glad of the company. It’s reassuring not to feel they have to say anything and he puts his back against the wall and watches Sherlock for a moment, who mirrors him with his back against the banisters just above him – then obviously unable to sit still for too long (John feels an odd slip of _something_ cross his mouth just for a second), he gets up, steps carefully over John – he tucks his legs in as far as he can without cramping – and walks over to Mrs Hudson’s door and knocks. John hears her open the door, a steady friendly creak, hears Sherlock make a request for tea, mumbling between them, Mrs Hudson’s concerned breath of, ‘Oh…’ Stares hard at his boots. He knows they’ve both been worried.

He wants to feel touched and maybe he does, deep down and maybe he should get up and go and speak to them. But he just can’t stand up. He can’t get to his feet and he can’t walk up the seventeen steps to 221B Baker Street. He can’t. He just knows he can’t.

Sherlock comes back to sit with him and before long, there’s a clattering: Mrs Hudson has brought out tea on a tray, tea and biscuits: bourbons and custard creams and one or two Hobnobs, all John’s favourites. Mrs Hudson must have brought them recently, maybe for him in the aftermath of… everything.

His stomach turns; he doesn’t think he can eat. He appreciates the gesture, he does; manages the tea even, as Mrs Hudson lingers, watches him pick up a mug (not a cup, he notes, a mug. Something that doesn’t matter if he ends up breaking it, which she must be fully expecting him to do). He manages one Hobnob and even that’s hard. There’s something inside him; right inside his brain – no, it _is_ his brain and it feels cold, blunted, spreading to his stomach and he can’t eat. The chocolate is hot and sticky in his throat; the crumbs are dry. He doesn’t like it.

It’s like… it’s like.

He closes his eyes. It’s like before. It’s like That Winter, another January, when the nights and the days were dark, and he spent the days feeling that same, pointless kind of pain. That same empty ache.

Then he met Sherlock and the world started to warm up.

(And then there had been – then there had been the other time, right after, after Barts, right after Sherlock had plummeted from the top after sharing his last conversation with John. That brief time, that ever so brief time, when he had, in fact, felt…)

He wants to close his eyes and sleep. Sleep right here on the stairs, he can do that, can’t he, he’s slept in worse, harder places. He wants to escape the pain inside his head, even for a while. Will he have nightmares, though – will he, he’s not sure, he never really used to get them in 221B anymore, not all the time anyway –

‘Are you going to come up now?’ Sherlock asks and John shakes his head.

‘No,’ he says.

‘John.’ Sherlock is staring at him, no doubt taking in the changes; no sleep, dropped weight over the past week (over the past month), shaking left hand as John puts the mug down. He suddenly realises, though, with another glance at Sherlock’s face, what his friend may be thinking.

‘It’s okay,’ he croaks, ‘it’s not – I mean, it’s nothing you’ve done.’ He knows this, down to his bones; what happened to Mary is no fault of his friend’s; Sherlock did everything he could to protect them, even if it was all pointless in the end, even if it was all for naught. Even if Mary left them anyway, the baby going with her by default. Nope – John may be an idiot with a short fuse, but he won’t be the sort of idiot who blames Sherlock now, after all the effort his friend made to keep them safe.

The shuddering enormity of that – that it was all pointless in the end – makes John want to shrivel up there and then. _Oh, Sherlock._

‘I just…’ he makes a truly lame wave of the hand, indicates his current spot. ‘Yeah.’

‘John. Please come up.’ Sherlock’s voice is bare; there is pleading behind the syllables, behind the _please._ John hates it and bites his lip, hard. _Please don’t, Sherlock._

‘No,’ he manages. His eyes immediately thicken; he has to look away, swallow hard. ‘I can’t.’

*

Sherlock doesn’t leave him. John appreciates this, he does, but Sherlock – Sherlock has a home here. Sherlock has his work and his kitchen and his chair and his bed upstairs and he needs to go back up there where it’s secure. And Moriarty – if it is him – isn’t going to catch himself.

‘Go back up,’ he says, once they’ve sat on the stairs for an age in silence; he hasn’t said a word and he knows Sherlock doesn’t really mind, which is a relief, but knows his friend must be twitchy from sitting still so long. John doesn’t think he wants to talk. Does he? Not right now, anyway. Not in this moment.

‘John,’ Sherlock is being betrayed by his voice, the slight tremor that John has only heard a handful of times before. At the pool, for instance (something years ago that John can’t delete, even if Sherlock can). The day at Barts’ when they were a roof apart and John was desperately trying to reach out to the way Sherlock’s voice shook down his phone, to comfort him, console him, anything to bring him down safely. And the night he came back, when they were staring at each other across the space of two years’ apart and it was becoming clear, very quickly, that Sherlock had seriously underestimated just what the hell he had done.

‘It’s okay,’ John says, even though it quite clearly isn’t and Sherlock’s expression says as much. ‘Go on up. I’ll just be down here. I promise.’

*

He’ll guard the door, he thinks. There are monsters outside, there are monsters and Moriarty, but he can sit on the stairs and guard the door. He doesn’t mind; even now, there’s a small part of him that quite likes the idea of just a front door between himself and the rest of the world and then himself between Sherlock and anyone or anything that might force their way in. Inside, but only just. He can handle that.

A small part of him is vaguely aware he’s making a fool out of himself – it sounds like his mother, when John was younger, when he misunderstood something that someone was telling him on the first go, or embarrassed himself (her) in public after tripping over his feet or being caught out by a coughing bout. The glares she gave him as he set himself to rights, holding herself just a little more distant from him every time. He can see that now, in his mind’s eye, his mother’s tight mouth and sharp eyes, looking away. _You married an assassin, Johnny and now you’re malingering on your best friend’s stairs. You’re making a fool of yourself, Johnny._

He knows Sherlock is worried, but he can’t go back and he can’t go forwards (upwards) to 221B.

He’ll guard the door. He’ll sit and guard the door while Sherlock works and Mrs Hudson sleeps.

*

‘John,’ Sherlock tries, imploring, not bothering to hide the deep concern.

John shakes his head; takes the water-bottle that Sherlock offers. Undoes the cap, takes a sip. The water shudders in the bottle in rhythm with his hands – he quickly puts it aside. It’s so blatant, so unhidden and he sees Sherlock move his head to the side, something behind his eyes that John doesn’t like.

‘I can’t,’ he says, putting both his hands up as a stop motion, ‘I’m sorry, I. I can’t.’

*

Sherlock, bless him, doesn’t give up that easily. Around nine, when the hallway is getting colder and darker, there’s a knock on the front door: it’s Angelo, holding up steaming packages of Italian, complete with plates.

‘I want these back,’ he warns, albeit with a twinkle and a smile, as Sherlock strolls past John with his wallet to accept. ‘Know what you’re like, Sherlock.’

Sherlock smiles politely, tossing a few notes at him whilst throwing a look over his shoulder at John, on his wooden perch and John is thrust back in time, five years previously –

 _(He said you forgot this,_ Angelo said it with a laugh, unbothered, holding out John’s cane with warm regard. John, sheepish, still panting, looked around at Sherlock, only to be met by a smile – it was somewhere between knowing and. Well. Sweet, really. It was a _sweet_ smile, almost kind.

For the first time since returning, John had felt regarded, and _seen,_ properly, as a whole).

A lot has changed, since then. A lot.

‘Asked him to bring us plates,’ Sherlock is saying, ‘and cutlery.’ And that’s when John realises: Sherlock is unloading the takeaway right here in the hall, sitting cross-legged at the bottom of the stairs. He watches in silence as Sherlock serves up a small helping of spaghetti bolognaise for him – always had a weakness for it, for the way Angelo makes it – spreads it around the plate, takes the lid off one of the plastic containers and scatters a bit of parmesan on top.

‘Not sure this is hygienic,’ John tries – is alarmed by the sound of his own voice under the weight of the feeble joke. This is the man who keeps fingers and thumbs and human-heads in their – his – fridge, after all. Sherlock, for his part, gives a shrug, complete with an eyebrow tilt, and offers the plate to John.

He thinks he might be hungry. He thinks. He should be, shouldn’t he, it’s been… how long has it been? Several hours? A day? What did he eat last?

Why can’t he _remember?_

He tries. He really tries. Takes the fork that Sherlock gives him and then looks at Sherlock. He’s focused deliberately on his own food, waiting for John to accept his. John twirls his pasta around his fork and then lifts it to his mouth, takes a bite, manages to swallow.

And that’s all he can do. It’s as if his stomach rebels in protest at the thought of having to do it again, to finish it and put more food in his mouth and he lets it fall back onto the plate; he can’t even bring himself to twirl it around again. He can’t put it in his mouth, he can’t swallow, not with this kind of scorch in his throat that makes it hard to swallow anything.

‘I’m sorry,’ he says, unable to look at Sherlock and then he has to put his plate aside and then, then he stands, but not to go up; instead, he takes a moment to get used to being on his feet again – his leg, his leg is cramping, it’s starting, _slowly,_ to hurt and goes to knock on Mrs Hudson’s door. She answers immediately, concerned as she takes him in.

‘Hi, can I – can I use your bathroom? Please?’ he manages, to get across before she starts talking, starts trying to comfort.

She opens her mouth, seems to think better of it; nods and lets him pass by without comment.

*

_‘Don’t you ever bring that woman back here again,’ Mrs Hudson stood at the front door to 221, shielding the entrance, ignoring the ultrasound picture John had in his hand; she wouldn’t take it, she wouldn’t accept it and she wouldn’t let him in. ‘I can’t stop you from getting yourself in too deep with someone who lied to you repeatedly, but I won’t have you both parade it around here and I won’t stand for Sherlock having to tolerate her in his living-space after what she did to him.’_

_John stared at her, standing on the pavement; realised too late his mouth was open and closed it with a swallow, coughed. Couldn’t think of a thing to say and this just seemed to make things worse; Mrs Hudson stepped back, gazed at John with the heaviness of disappointment; looked like his mother, just for a moment._

_‘Honestly, I’m really surprised at you, John.’ She said it with the voice of a woman who was trying not to burst into tears. Then she slammed the door in his face and left him standing alone on the street._

*

He sits in her little bathroom, with framed paintings of cute labrador puppies and little tabby kittens in bows on the wall, bubble bath on the shelf with Aussie shampoo and a sneaky bottle of hair-dye and he buries his face in his hands. He hasn’t bothered turning the light on.

He doesn’t really need to go, in fact. He just… he needs to be somewhere quiet. So he sits in the dark, just for a while. Just sits.

_Don’t cry. Don’t…_

*

‘I’m sorry,’ he says, returning to the stairs; looks at his plate and shakes his head. Sherlock puts his own plate aside and John notices he’s not touched his own food either.

John should say something. He would have said something five years ago, wouldn’t he? _You need to eat,_ he had said on their second ever stake-out meal when the man still refused to take anything. Sherlock had muttered something about the body being transport and John had huffed and said a bit of chicken tikka masala wouldn’t kill him; in the end, Sherlock had eaten three bites, just to appease him. Their waiter had almost had a nervous breakdown; John had left him his last fiver.

He should say something, now. He nearly doesn’t and he nearly lets it go. Then he remembers the bullet-wound and he opens his mouth; wants to tell Sherlock to eat, please, eat, don’t let John hold him back, but again, there’s a _something_ in his throat, something that stops him, is still stopping him and he tries to swallow it away again, takes some more water to give himself time.

‘I’m sorry,’ is all he says again, as he sinks back down on the steps, because Sherlock has spent money on this, Sherlock brought him food and John turned it away.

A hand lands on his shoulder; his plate is taken away. Sherlock’s voice is perfectly balanced with a quiet edge. ‘It doesn’t matter, John.’

*

He’s having a breakdown, he realises vaguely, everything he’s doing right now points towards that. He knows the symptoms well; seen them in others, seen them in himself (because. Well. There had been nights when. In that bedsit, he had barely eaten and he had thrown up what he had barely eaten and he had sat and stared at his laptop. So he knows, oh yes). There’s a crack in his head, his heart, running throughout his whole body. He might shatter to pieces, right here at the bottom of the stairs.

He wouldn’t mind that. Maybe then, everything might be okay. Maybe then, the black hole that’s opened itself up again, that’s slowly swallowing him from the inside, might just stop and he’ll be okay.

*

Mary.

The baby.

Both gone, now.

*

It’s late. It’s cold in the hallway – the heat doesn’t really reach this far and John tugs his coat tighter around him; again, this isn’t unfamiliar. It’s raining outside; he can hear the wind battering on the other side of the door, feel it as it slips through the letter-box with a little rattle.

Sherlock is pacing upstairs, John can hear him. He’s glad of that, at the very least. He likes the noise; as long as he hears that, he knows Sherlock is safe, even if he should be more worried about the man getting some sleep. Sherlock has been giving it a break; he’s been back in the warm for a while now. He’ll probably stop altogether soon – something will come through about Moriarty and Sherlock will turn his attention to that instead, probably jump over John’s frozen corpse on the stairs to reach the door when he gets the call –

He hears the door to 221b open and Sherlock comes down the stairs. He’s holding his own coat in hand, his dark Belstaff.

‘John, it’s freezing.’

John gives a chuckling laugh, a dry one that shakes his shoulders.

‘I’ve had worse.’ Because he has. He’s had freezing nights alone in a bedsit with only nightmares for company, he’s had the nights in Afghanistan. And he’s had the nights – the last week – of trying to sleep and failing in an empty bed in a house in the suburbs.

Sherlock sighs. ‘Sit up,’ he says and John blinks blearily at him, before doing as he’s told, shifting forwards, away from the wall. And then, there’s a huddle of warmth as Sherlock drapes the Belstaff right around his shoulders.

Oh. Erm.

‘You don’t have to - I’m not in shock,’ John protests, lamely, and Sherlock pauses, startled; John doesn’t understand why. But then maybe that’s just his default, these days – he doesn’t seem to understand anything.

‘Have it anyway,’ he says, seeming to recover from whatever... _thing_ he’s momentarily fallen into. John pauses, feeling awkwardness gnaw at him.

‘Thankyou,’ he decides on, in the end. The coat is warm, covering his back and actually, the wall _is_ pretty cold against his spine and his jacket pretty thin. ‘Thanks, Sherlock.’

*

It’s almost midnight. He can hear the clock ticking – it will strike soon and it’ll be another day. The coat helps. John actually finds himself dozing off once or twice, his head nudging back against the wall. Ever the soldier.

A decent one, maybe. Once upon a time.

*

The hours pass; John loses count. He shifts around, focuses all his attentions on the wall; has never inspected it this closely before. There are slight shreds, here and there, and if you look very closely, a small series of little lines, as though something was being dragged along the side.

Of course, it hits him: the day with the gun-toting Americans. Mrs Hudson had been pulled up the stairs. She had told him all about it afterwards, how they had pulled her up the stairs as though she was little more than an animal and it had made him so angry, made him want to go back upstairs and have a go at tossing that American agent out the window himself because who the hell did that to a harmless little old lady?

A long time ago, he thinks – four years, now. Might as well be forty, or even fourteen. Things are different, now.

*

Sherlock brings him a truly terrible attempt at hot chocolate that nevertheless warms his hands; refills his water.

He thinks about Mary. He thinks about all the things they have back at the house for their daughter; wonders if Mrs Hudson would know anyone who’s looking for new baby clothes, for a cot, for a stuffed mouse with a cute tail. Doting grandmothers and aunts, maybe? John certainly has no use for them, now.

He rubs his hands together as the wind rattles the letter-box. Pulls the coat tighter around himself and then shoves his palms in the pockets. He doesn’t have any gloves – Sherlock had offered his with the hot chocolate, and John had refused.

‘I don’t want to break them,’ he had said, by way of explanation; had thought vaguely that Sherlock’s gloves might be too thin for him. Doesn’t really want to risk it. They’re nice gloves.

*

He should look so homeless, to anyone who didn’t know him better.

Perhaps he is.

*

It’s four o’clock in the morning.

‘Come up.’

‘No.’

‘John.’ Sherlock is gazing down at him and there’s something in his voice that sounds torn between firmness and… fear, even. As though he’s not sure what to do and is falling back on the only thing he knows how to do, which is trying to be bossy and in this instance, failing. _‘Please._ Just come up. I’ll make you some tea,’ he adds as a kind of desperate incentive.

John blinks rapidly. Blinks back wetness _(dammit)_ looks at Sherlock. He shakes his head.

‘No. Please,’ he swallows. ‘I can’t.’ He does a limp thing with his hands. Presses them against air. ‘I’m sorry. I,’ he almost chokes on the word, ‘I can’t.’

*

Sherlock nods.

Then he sits down beside him on the stairs, wraps his own jacket around himself and sits with his head against the banister, eyes on John.

‘Tell me to go away,’ he says and John doesn’t; he won’t. He can’t think of anything to say to him right now, but he really doesn’t want Sherlock to go away. They’ve had enough of that already, all things considered and he realises the man hasn’t been ignoring him; he’s just been trying to give him a bit of time, been trying to do this John’s way, albeit with limited patience.

He doesn’t know how to say any of that, though. So he ducks his head instead, plays with his hands that just won’t stay _still._

*

Sherlock reaches out and takes his hand.

*

It’s warm and it’s sudden and it’s shocking. It’s out of character, unexpected.

It’s anchoring. Sherlock’s hand encircles his wrist and he holds on tight.          

John stares for a long moment. The touch of skin – of Sherlock’s skin, of his palm – on his wrist, is. Well. It’s strange, for one thing. It’s not Mary’s hand, obviously; it’s different, it _is_ a man’s, after all. John has always vaguely felt that putting your hand over or around someone else’s is like an expression of… something; not ownership, exactly, but it can seem possessive at the wrong moment, at the wrong time, with the wrong person. You have to know that the other person trusts you and wants your hand there, he believes; otherwise, it just seems wrong. So you have to time it right.

He trusts Sherlock. And anyway, Sherlock hasn’t put his hand over John’s, he’s just wrapped it around, that’s all. He’s holding on.

(Sherlock has done everything possible, everything he can offer to give John – and Mary – a good, steady life outside Baker Street. He shot a man for them, so they could be happy).

John’s smile fades – he wasn’t aware he was smiling at all – and he gently tugs and takes his hand away. He can’t.

‘John.’

John shakes his head. ‘I.’ His voice is hoarse. _‘Can’t.’_

*

Sherlock doesn’t give up.

He looks thoughtful and dark-eyed in the half-light as he, very gently, reaches for John’s other hand instead, before John can stop him. ‘It’s alright,’ he murmurs as John shies away - feeling stupid as he does so, like he’s a nervous colt in a pen - and cradles John’s palm and fingers safely between his own, before putting his other hand on top, a secure dome.

John _breaks._

*

It’s stupid and – and wet – and, and embarrassing, more than anything, the way he just not-so-quietly cracks apart under Sherlock’s eyes, Sherlock’s touch before he falls sideways, straight into Sherlock’s arms and the sheer solidarity of his chest as he shudders, sobs, his eyes blurred by the heavy onslaught of tears, the raw, real roar of pain in his throat.

He hurts. He hurts all over, he hurts in his very bones. He hurts with the hurt of a widower because that’s what he is now, John Watson is a widower and just to add insult to injury, a man who never even got to listen to the first breaths of his baby daughter.

He lies across Sherlock’s lap and cries it all out and he’s only vaguely aware, somewhere along the way, that one of Sherlock’s arms is wrapped around the back of his head in support and the other is around his middle, gentle and secure, in the way John realises he can be now, in the way that Sherlock is to the people he trusts.

And he should feel so, so stupid, but really, John can’t believe, somewhere underneath the noise – will Mrs Hudson rush out in a minute panicking about wolves? – that it took him so long to just bloody realise that.

*

_‘You shouldn’t have done it,’ he said, bag in one hand as he glared at his wife, the other hand on the front door-handle and she reached out, reached for him._

_‘John – ‘_

_He jabbed a finger at her. ‘You. Shouldn’t. Have. Done. It.’ He made to leave; then glanced back. ‘Tell me if there’s any problems with the baby.’ And he felt awful – deep down he felt terrible, abandoning his child with Mary, with her lying mother, even though she was safely cocooned in the womb and blissfully unaware of the marital strife. But he couldn’t – he couldn’t. She had shot Sherlock and so he couldn’t._

_Then he was gone, letting the door slam behind him._

*

‘I was thinking about ending it,’ he reveals later, sprawled across his step, still in Sherlock’s coat; the confession falls out of his mouth, into the space of 221b, strange and alien as he plays with one of the sleeves. Sherlock is there, right next to him, Sherlock is holding him up and listening with a strangely gentle face. At the words though, he can feel his friend tense and realises: he doesn’t quite understand what John means, so he hastens to explain. He owes him an explanation, after all.

‘I tried,’ he shrugs at Sherlock, makes himself say the words, he’s going to say this, he has to say this, for his own sanity if nothing else, ‘I really did try, I loved her, I did, I really, really did, but I just kept _thinking,_ Sherlock, and I just couldn’t – I could never quite let it go.’ He raises his face to look up at his friend; Sherlock’s face is set, cast in something he doesn’t like. He knows what _It_ is. Mary’s lies. Mary shooting Sherlock. ‘I thought I could. I began… maybe…’ he swallows and just decides to say it, ‘just – taking our daughter and leaving. If. Things didn’t… I did, Sherlock, I actually thought that. This. Half-baked idea. If she…’

He shrugs, feeling stupid even as he says it. ‘That’s what I thought. But I didn’t. I don’t know,’ he confesses. ‘I don’t know, Sherlock.’ He shrugs at his friend, stupid and helpless. _This is how sorry I am._

He sniffles, crumples, feeling like a total idiot and falls back against Sherlock’s side, beyond all reservation and dignity; his friend says nothing, does nothing, just holds John close with both arms around him. Honestly, it’s one of the best hugs John has received in… he doesn’t even know how long.

‘Alright,’ Sherlock says and holds him tighter. ‘Alright, John.’ He pauses and then – very carefully, very slowly – his hand is running itself through John’s hair, through the strands, just gently so, a few times, as though soothing a nervous, wounded animal. Which John supposes he is and he lets Sherlock do that, just for a minute; the man is cautious, isn’t used to touching or being touched, has never been and he’s clearly learning on the job.

And it’s stupid, but it does help a bit, Sherlock’s palm careful in his hair. It’s not something they usually do, no, but today’s the exception and John lets his eyes shut, just for a second or two as Sherlock’s hand continues its movement, rustling through the slight overgrowth of the strands, more grey than blonde now, really, back and forth in a soothing fashion.

‘You couldn’t come up,’ Sherlock says, finally, letting his hand fall away and John nods. He couldn’t. He just couldn’t. He had arrived at Baker Street to talk to Sherlock – because Sherlock had asked him to come and had said it was alright, and that was okay. But he had stood at the bottom of those stairs and felt it, then and there; that desperate, plummeting ache.

*

Up in 221B somewhere, there’s a ghost; another John Watson, not that old, just a few years gone. He barely has any grey in his hair and he wears stripey jumpers and he’s never thought about growing a moustache. He strolls around 221B, content with his lot; he blogs and he makes tea and toast for himself and for Sherlock Holmes. It’s a good way to be; it’s a happy life.

*

 _I’m not the John Watson,_ he had said, five years ago one winter day, in the face of Mike Stamford’s joviality, broken and battered as he was from war, because he wasn’t, because he was reaching out for something, anything, with trembling hands, and he wasn’t enough, somehow, wasn’t strong enough or secure enough or enough, full-stop, to grab hold of it and grip it tight. He wasn’t the John Watson and hadn’t been since the second that bullet had entered his shoulder.

 _I’m not the John Watson,_ he had thought yesterday evening, at the bottom of 221B and his hand had trembled and he had been utterly unable to climb up those stairs, because he wasn’t the John Watson. He had married a woman who had offered both love and a whole load of lies and had left lasting damage, had spread ripples and caused pain and then been taken away, and so he isn’t the John Watson, not anymore.

*

‘Now _everyone_ will talk,’ he huffs thickly, taking the handkerchief Sherlock offers him; it’s quite nicely old-fashioned, the man always seems to carry one around. The whole right side of Sherlock’s jacket is covered with tears and… uh… other teary remnants. John blows his nose, swallows, reaches out to wipe some of the stains away. ‘Sorry.’

‘Don’t worry,’ Sherlock says, ‘I won’t mention it on the website.’ He states rather it primly and John does find a laugh for that; it’s more of a hiccough, than anything, but… still. It’s good. It’s a good feeling. He should be feeling guilty; he should; after all, he said goodbye to his wife and his daughter – his _family_ – the day before yesterday.

And Sherlock had stood, right by his side, all through the service. After everything, he had stood by John’s side.

*

‘Come with me, John,’ Sherlock says softly.

John pauses. His cheeks are damp. He’s warmer, but the chill of 221B’s hallway remains; it’s only a door between himself and the outside world, after all. The wind whistling through the letter-box settles on his face, a cold, almost-mask. The redness of his tears is starting to sting. His shoulder is starting to ache, because of the cold.

Then, slowly, he nods.

*

Something crosses Sherlock’s face – it looks suspiciously like relief – and then he’s standing and reaching down with his hand; John takes it and allows himself to be helped, albeit very shakily, to his feet.

‘Careful,’ Sherlock says, as he braces himself against the wall; his leg is definitely going. Definitely. He hates himself for wondering if Sherlock still has the cane stashed away somewhere, even after all this time, but he might not have a choice in the matter. Maybe; maybe just for a few days, if he sticks to the flat, if they don’t tell anyone. Somehow, he thinks Sherlock might keep the secret.

He remembers only then, as it threatens to slip off his shoulders, that he’s still wearing Sherlock’s coat; he pauses and then takes it off and tucks it with care over his other arm, once he’s steadied.

‘Alright?’ Sherlock asks and John nods; he’s not sure why, but he’s suddenly fearing he might be sick if he talks. Sherlock doesn’t mind though; rather, he keeps his hand curled around John’s and then, just like that, one step at a time, one after the other, John is being led up the stairs and up into 221B.

*

_‘Have you definitely forgiven me?’ Sherlock asked, after all the reporters had gone, with their photographs and stories and comments and John smirked a little, hands behind his back as he eyed him up – glanced up the stairs as he heard Mary laughing from above._

_‘I seem to be outnumbered,’ he said with a shrug, finally and Sherlock smirked as he put the hat back on the coat-stand. The very sight made John beam and he looked the other way, tongue in cheek. Oh, what a thing to see, after two years of thinking he’d never see it again._

_Brilliant day, he thought. Definitely a brilliant day._

_‘Come on,’ he said instead, putting one foot on the bottom step, gesturing to Sherlock to follow. ‘Don’t want to miss out on the champagne.’_

*

The warmth hits him – the fire’s on – and he realises how much he’s been shivering. What time is it? Six? Seven?

‘Half-five,’ Sherlock says calmly and John curses himself. Twelve hours of absolute fucking tomfoolery.

‘I’m – ’

‘Don’t you dare,’ Sherlock tells him and takes his coat off him. John watches him hang it up, oddly drowsy; the kettle is bubbling and boiling and his chair – his chair – is underneath him, he’s been steered into it and the soft noises of 221b are colourful, vivid and real to his strained eyes. Half-five. Bloody hell. He pushes himself forward, rubs his eyes, the very idea making him tired. Has Sherlock been awake all night then, trying to persuade him? Trying to get him to come back up here? When was the last time _he_ slept?

‘Drink,’ his friend barks and a hot tea is pressed into his hand, warming up his fingers, his palm. John wants to say something, should say something, but nothing comes. He drinks, downs the tea, is thinking he suddenly would rather like a bourbon, now and even as his stomach rumbles at the thought, there is a rattle and a small packet of them has been deposited on the table at his side. John blinks hard. Really, really hard.

Sherlock sits down opposite him and John feels his heart sink (and that in itself is a reassuring feeling, just because it’s a _feeling_ underneath…well…everything). His friend looks exhausted; John learned to tell from a glance, a long time ago and he really hates how Sherlock is looking right now. Bags under the eyes, hair a bit too ruffled and untidy, skin looking a little pinched. The look of someone who’s been awake for too long. Sherlock is stronger, healthier, _better_ than he was after… after Mary… after she… but anyway, John wants to keep it that way, had been trying to. It had been a close one.

He failed, he thinks. He failed all over again. He failed to look out for someone he loved and now he’s never getting them back. Not this time; there’s no hidden ace. This time the separation is permanent.

He wonders how to explain that to Sherlock. But then maybe Sherlock already knows.

He takes another sip of the tea and then reaches for the bourbons, shifts forward in his chair as he opens the packet and holds it out to his friend. His hand is shaking, still shaking, so, so badly. Sherlock pauses – he’s noticed – then he reaches out and takes one; as he does so, he puts his hand underneath John’s, just briefly. Steadies him, steadies his hand. John swallows. It’s such an alien gesture; not one his friend usually makes, but then he’s never held a wailing John in his arms before and that turned out alright; the world didn’t end, and it did help.

Once more, they don’t really talk for a bit; John can’t find the words for what’s been going on, doesn’t think he can speak, full-stop. He manages another biscuit, bites slowly and steadily, swallows past the thing in his throat. His ears sting with the cold. His shoulder _aches,_ a glowering agony _._ His head’s less heavy though. And maybe that’s okay.

*

He wakes up.

He can’t remember falling asleep, but that’s what happens: he wakes up and he’s on the sofa and the fire is still burning and it’s… He’s in 221B. He’s definitely still in 221B; the lounge is there around him and it’s a familiar burst of sheer relief. There’s a quilt – one of Mrs Hudson’s, he recognises the pattern – around his legs and there’s a cushion – the Union Jack one, his favourite – under his head – his still slightly damp head, he had a bath to ease his leg, his shoulder, not too long ago. Sherlock had seen him glance towards the bathroom and had nodded, _Yes, that’s fine._

It’s dark outside, but the lamps are on and there’s a glow, oddly soft and safe, filling the room.

He looks to his left; Sherlock is in his seat, looking over something on the laptop. John blinks and watches him a moment; it’s an oddly reassuring sight. Sherlock is here. Sherlock is okay.

Mary and the baby are dead, though.

Mary is never coming back and John will never be a father.

He sinks into the cushion, turns away, pulls the quilt over him, right over his mouth. Wants to scream into the material, over and over. He’d forgotten for a minute, but it’s still there. It will be there forever; for the rest of his life, he will bear that and he will be alone, knowing he could have been married and could have been a father.

He buries his face into the cushion, breathes into the material, bites it. It hurts, oh, it hurts and he lets it happen, lets himself cry, pulls the quilt right over his head, lets his shoulders shake. He doesn’t want to go through it, he doesn’t he doesn’t he _doesn’t,_ he doesn’t want to face it, but. He’s been so cold and so tired and he’s just. He’s _just._

He leaves a damp imprint of his mouth, his teeth, on the pillow, and turns it over after it becomes to damp to rest his cheek on. Listens to Sherlock’s fingers, _tap-tap-tapping_ the keyboard; lets himself inhale, exhale, under the blanket as he takes in that sound once more.

*

‘How long have I been asleep?’ he asks eventually and Sherlock looks up.

‘It’s the afternoon, John,’ he says, looking remarkably unsurprised. John nods; nearly twenty-four hours since he arrived; he’s slept for a good time, too. His stomach grumbles and loudly enough to be heard. He hears Sherlock get up from his chair; knows he should get up too, he should, his sleeping pattern is probably well and truly screwed by now and he needs. He needs.

He puts his head back against the cushions, stretches; hasn’t slept so well since, _well._ Before last week. That’s right, he realises with a jolt. One week. One week to the day since he lost them. And now, little luxuries like this – feeling rested, if not relaxed – feel odd, almost traitorous. Why should he get to live when his wife and daughter didn’t?

Sherlock chooses that moment to reappear with a sandwich, and puts it down next to John. A glance at it tells John it’s ham and tomato and he reaches for it, feeling the smallest stab of longing suddenly; the need for soft white bread between his teeth, for some kind of familiar flavour. He loves that; wouldn’t have expected Sherlock to remember such a trivial detail. But then he hadn’t expected Sherlock to deliver such a brilliant best man’s speech, either.

‘Are you going to tell Mycroft?’ he asks, as he takes a small bite - _oh, come on, that’s lovely -_  because, really, he’s surprised that Sherlock hasn’t already. _Hello, brother dear, my best friend is having a breakdown downstairs, do we have a file for that?_ He wants to laugh, suddenly, at the thought and really, he wouldn’t have blamed Sherlock if he had. Mycroft’s job is to protect Sherlock, after all and it makes sense that he’s been picking up the slack. Sherlock glances at him, shakes his head.

Well. He probably already knows. John focuses on his sandwich, rather than that particular embarrassing fact; manages to eat the whole thing. Sherlock’s smile as he watches him put the empty plate aside is an odd kind of reward for a slightly fuller belly. 

*

‘I don’t know what I was thinking.’ He shrugs up at Sherlock across the room, the only was he knows how to say _yes, I know, I’m being really weird right now._ He leans forward, trembling. ‘I don’t know.’

Sherlock looks contemplative, before he steps across and sits down next to him. It must look a bit odd, from the outside, John with the blanket around his shoulders and Sherlock in his suit, albeit slightly ruffled and creased from a whole night of helping John, but still. It’s softer than the stairs.

‘Sorry,’ John says; it’s all he can say, like a compulsion. Sherlock puts a palm to his shoulder in a gesture that’s so… focused it’s almost practiced. Like he’s been reading up on how to help people suffering with grief. Which he probably has.

‘You have had a very, very difficult week,’ he says, extremely diplomatic in his approach. John nods, grave; that he has. He most certainly has.

‘Your bed’s just as you left it,’ Sherlock adds and John looks back up. They stare at each other and then John feels something twitch on his face; something that feels almost alien, something he hasn’t felt, properly, in days.

He still can’t say anything, so instead, he holds out both arms and wraps them around Sherlock, blanket and all and draws him into them - holds onto him tightly, right there on the sofa.

*

He expects the bed, the whole room, to be chilled in his absence – in fact he expected his bed to be stripped, unmade – but no, it’s there and prepared and the radiator is on; low heat, but still on.

John sits on the edge of the bed, runs his hands over the duvet, the whole room. Now he thinks about it; he and Mary never spent the night here together. Not once. It had never happened.

That makes it easier, somehow.

He lies down sideways, presses his cheek against the duvet. Curls up tight, so tight, in a ball, wraps his hands around his knees. One hand fumbles for his pocket; his wallet and he pulls it out with shaking hands ( _intermittent tremor:_ _shut up, Mycroft. It’s true, but shut up)._ And he looks at her, that photograph of the last ultrascan, before… before. She’s there, curled safely in her Mummy’s tummy, a shape of sheer, wonderful promise.

 _I’m sorry,_ he thinks and he doesn’t know who he’s saying it to. To the baby; to Mary; to Sherlock. To all three. _I’m sorry. I love you. I’m so, so, sorry._

He covers his face with his arms, his hands, trembles into the bedclothes. He lies there for a moment before slowly, gradually becoming aware of the sounds of Sherlock, moving around downstairs and he turns over in bed, looks up at the familiar ceiling, at the window. Watches the rain batter the glass, listens to it drumming down on the roof. It can’t reach him, in here.

*

John treads down the stairs a little later, goes to the bathroom, washes his face, dries himself off. Then, with care, he steps into the lounge, not wanting to disturb Sherlock if he’s working.

Sherlock is dozing on the sofa, sprawled across it. Like he only meant to lie down and think for a bit (maybe about the case, or maybe just about how to handle _this,_ handle John?) and ended up closing his eyes.

John sniffs; wipes his eyes with his sleeve. Wanders into the kitchen, past the plates still waiting to be washed, still carrying the barest, recent remains of pasta. Walks around the table for a moment, reabsorbs the microscope, the safety goggles, the mugs and tea-towels, so indifferent to him and so known.

Heading back through to the lounge, he clocks the blanket that’s folded over the edge of the sofa, the same one he slept under before. It must be there for a reason – maybe it’s used frequently. Perhaps it is. John reaches over Sherlock and pulls the blanket out, tucks it around him. Then, he lowers himself to sit on the very edge of the sofa; watches Sherlock for a moment before letting his eyes drift across to the glowing fireplace, notes the time on the clock – it’s nearly six – and at the skull, grinning down at him.

John stands again and wanders, with the smallest limp, back across to his familiar chair, lets himself sink into it. Puts his feet up, stretches his legs; braces them against Sherlock’s own chair, just for a moment. It’s different, to sitting and resting and sleeping on the hard, unforgiving wood of the stairs below. It’s better.

John Watson _breathes._

*

**Author's Note:**

> I don't know for sure if it is seventeen steps up to 221B, but that's what the Internet says. *shrug*  
> Please note: minor edits were made to the fic on 18/11/15, after I spotted one or two errors in the original draft that I had overlooked and things I wasn't quite happy with. Apologies to anyone who spotted those mistakes. Thanks for reading!


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